129_Sophie Strand === Sophie: You know, usually people gait out a lot of sensory stimuli in order to kind of function, but people who have PTSD. Their body registers a constant danger. So to filter out stimuli would be to filter out danger. You're constantly on, and this can be considered a disability neurodivergence, but it can also be recontextualized as being a kind of ecological awareness that other people don't always have access to. And so for me, I have always noticed more fighters. I've noticed when the wild flowers are late, when things smell differently. And sometimes that amount of stimuli can be frustrating, but other times it keeps me in to changes that might tell a story. That's not language, that's not human, but has important information to share. So I love that. My favorite thing to do is to walk and to walk the same walk with some consistency so that I get familiar with the birds and the wildlife and the vegetation. And I begin to notice over, you know, a moon cycle over a season. What's shifting, what's changing. What wants my attention. I very much believe that what we love loves us back. === Monica: Welcome to The Revelation Project podcast. I'm Monica Rogers, and this podcast is intended to disrupt the trance of unworthiness and to guide women, to remember and reveal the truth of who we are. We say that life is a revelation project, and what gets revealed gets healed. Hello everyone. And welcome to another episode of The Revelation Project Podcast. I am back today with one of my favorite all time. Favorite guests, Sophie Strand. Sophie's a writer based in the Hudson valley. She focuses on the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, any. Her first book of essays, the flowering wand rewilding, the sacred masculine will be published by inner traditions in the fall of 2022. Congratulations on that Sophie, it's available now for pre. Her eco feminist historical fiction re-imagining of the gospels. The Madonna Secret will also be published by Inner Traditions in the spring of 2023. That just gives me such a grin Sophie, like I'm so happy for you. Subscribe to her newsletter@sophiestranddotsubstack.com. And of course, follow her work on Instagram at Cosmologist. I never say that correctly. We'll be sure to put all of that in the show notes, but what I love the most about Sophie, and of course you're going to love her too, is that Sophie just has me contemplate and think about things that always bring me into new territories and new understanding, especially about the re-imagining of all, of what we've really. Been encountering, but she brings language to ideas and imagery that always kind of captivate me and offer me that bridge into being able to use that language to help me now create if it makes sense. Bigger circle of understanding into the interconnectedness of all things. And one of the ways that she does that is through what she calls ecological storytelling. And when you read or expose to her work, there's often this blend of healing, contemplation hope, humanity, and often a rewilding, which. Her explained, but of, of how we create how we tell stories, how we live in the world. So with that, I want to have you join me in welcoming her back on the show and Hey Sophie, how are you today? Sophie: Hi Monica, that was so generous of you. I'm very, very happy to be here. And it's cold in the Hudson valley, but at least we have flowers and Monica: I'm staring at actually two Lopes that are on the table. I know you can't see them, but they're kind of like in full bloom in front of me. And it's just such a beautiful kind of metaphor for this time. I feel like we're in right now is like, I feel like we're kind of coming out of the darkness, metaphorically, and also in this. Realm of reality, where we're kind of transitioning and everything is starting to bud and bloom a new, and it's just exciting. Like I'm looking at even the buds on the trees, it's also kind of chilly here in Maine, but I can see the new growth kind of happening everywhere. Sophie: Yeah. It's an exciting, but also a kind of. Hm, precipitous moment as we exit the pandemic, it's unclear whether it's over or not spring begins. Do we want to gather in festivity? Yes. I'm feeling into that myself, a new, a new cycle, Monica: A new cycle, indeed. And we're also kind of on the Eve of an eclipse. Yeah. Sophie: Oh, we are. Yeah. The eclipse portal begins and I'm focused. I tend to be very affected physically by eclipses. I always tend to have some kind of physical. Or crisis near them. So I'm being very slow right now. Monica: This is something that comes up for, for me as well, actually, you know, just starting to really pay attention to how the planetary or eclipse or moon, right? Just the connectedness again, to some of these lunar cycles. Some of these it's really fascinating to me because I'll usually make the connection after the fact, but I'm getting better at being, you know, a little bit more like thoughtful about what's coming up, you know, especially, you know, as I look at travel or I look at doing certain things. I've been learning a lot about planning my life more singularly and looking at the calendar from just this new perspective of when my energy's high, when it's low, when there's an eclipse, when there's not, it's just been fascinating because I definitely have seen kind of this evolution in my energy. That's very cyclical where I tend to have energy, you know? My cycle, that's really creative and then kind of ebbs and flows from there, or it goes into a heightened state and then it kind of like I'm, I'm I go back into dormancy and then I need to rest. And then it's back again. I wonder actually, one of the things I wanted to get curious about with you today is how creativity works for you because you're one of the most creative beings. I know. I say that because you're a prolific writer. And I look at that as being such an incredible form of creativity. Sophie: Thank you, Monica. I think of you as also being a profoundly connective creative facilitator. Uh, what is creativity? It's interesting. I mean, I think I was raised by parents who were writers, um, encouraged me to make art and music and stories. And they showed me that that was the best way to think was creatively by putting things together and seeing what new things routed. So I think for me, creativity is almost the technology I use to think through things, to move my emotions, to understand how I feel. You know, I write for work. I also write to figure out how I feel about things and what I, what I think I write to get rid of things, to take them out of my head. So, yeah, it's, it's a compulsion. I mean, the joke in my family and in my wider group of friends is that I have a condition called hypergraphia where I write too much. Some people say that Stephen King has it too. It is a real condition actually. But I think for me, creativity is a way of trying to make sense of things that otherwise might destroy me as well, that there was a time, you know, I'm a survivor of early childhood abuse and there was a sense early on. I had to tell a new story to save myself that I read stories that helped me think that helped me to understand that there were other possible more generous worlds than the one I had experienced. And because those stories saved me, I realized that it was possible for me to create stories that might save someone. I like to think of storytelling as the creative urge as being an emergency, you know, it's, it's a way of trying to save yourself and also provide that life raft to someone else. Monica: I love that so much. And yes, I actually, now that you're, speaking of it, recall reading a piece that you. Called. I think the title was storytelling as an emergency. And I think we even touched on emergency in our last episode. Yeah. So that, that really is kind of this compelling force. It's got an energy to it that has us experience time very differently. It's like, it really, it has a way of. Instantly kind of slicing right to the heart of why we're here, you know, which is I think to get out of the trance, right? Like come out of the trans in a way that has us fully express fully bloom, like say what we're here to say and tell the story that we're meant to tell. And. I wonder, do you think everybody has a story to tell? Sophie: Well, I do, because I think that story is movement. I think that humans didn't create stories. We belong to stories that are happening at scale as much too large for a single human lifespan, possibly understand. I think that storytelling is the difference between the top of the mountain and the valley. And it's that gradient that creates and carves the stream of water down. So I think storytelling is, it's not that everyone has a story to tell it's that every time you meet someone and you create that gradient and there are these two different perspectives, it's that difference between you? That creates a story. I think that storytelling is relational. So I think that every relationship has a story to tell Monica: it's so true. And what about, I'm curious too, about your process? Like, do you. And I don't know where I'm going with this, Sophie, it just feels, it just feels right. To kind of get curious about your process. Like, as you're kind of out in the world, are you, do you notice a story as it's happening or do you, are you, are you a collector while you're out there and then you kind of come back and write, or tell me more about that? Sophie: Hmm. Interesting. I think that I noticed other beings, you know, people who've experienced trauma are hypersensitive. You know, usually people gait out a lot of sensory stimuli in order to kind of function, but people who have PTSD. Their body registers a constant danger. So to filter out stimuli would be to filter out danger. You're constantly on, and this can be considered a disability neurodivergence, but it can also be recontextualized as being a kind of ecological awareness that other people don't always have access to. And so for me, I have always noticed more fighters. I've noticed when the wild flowers are late, when things smell differently. And sometimes that amount of stimuli can be frustrating, but other times it keeps me in to changes that might tell a story. That's not language, that's not human, but has important information to share. So I love that. My favorite thing to do is to walk and to walk the same walk with some consistency so that I get familiar with the birds and the wildlife and the vegetation. And I begin to notice over, you know, a moon cycle over a season. What's shifting, what's changing. What wants my attention. I very much believe that what we love loves us back. So that flowers. Or stones that catch our attention, want our attention. Um, so I don't know if I collect, I think I create. Relationships and connective tissue. And it's like, you know how fun guy we've together for us and plants and trees. I think of myself as being a little bit like a Michael rises system, I go outside and all of my Hi-C, which are that those filamentous tissues that make up underground fungal systems, all of them stretch out and connect me in to my ecosystem. And that can be an overwhelming sensory experience, but it can also make you feel greatly held. You can say, oh, I have all of these allies. I have all of these beams that are helping me think and showing me different perspectives. So I think that when I come back to right. Maybe I'm going to be writing a human story about illness. So right now this is a good example right now I'm writing about autoimmunity cause I'm having a very serious autoimmune flare. So I'm looking at it from a very human perspective, which is what is the history of this and medicine. What are, what are ancient history, examples of this, what what's scientifically happening, but I'm also letting my extended body, my extended web web of kinship, think with me, which is, you know, what is the hillside that absorbed the genocidal extermination of the Muncie? Lennart. About autoimmunity. What is, what are the construction sites where trees are being uprooted, teaching me about auto-immunity. So asking my more than human allies for help in thinking through this. Monica: I love that so much. For some reason, it's making me think of. Vanessa? No. What is her name? Darnit. Shakour Vanessa Shakour wrote a book called Awakening. Artimis did you buy, have you seen that by any chance? Sophie: I've seen it and I took a picture, but I think you posted it, but I haven't read it yet. It looks great. Monica: Yeah. Well, it, it makes me think about it because it's the second time I've had a woman and a writer on the show who has kind of talked about. All of these various ways that trauma and nature and creativity kind of do this dance together and that there's this kind of healing available within all of that, right? That there's, the storytelling is part of the healing that the. Uh, relationship between these things is part of the healing and that the mythology, right. When I think of kind of Artemis and, um, just the, the lineage of storytelling and, and it makes me really curious just about, um, Everybody's path to healing because I I've started to really play with this idea that every one has a healing journey, everyone. And I wonder sometimes if trauma, you know, and disease is somehow like an access. To creativity, a call an invitation if you will. Sophie: Yeah. I mean, I think that I always want to be really careful not to justify the massive amounts of trauma and violence and oppression. Patriarchal capitalism has an equally distributed. And I think that we always run the risk. Whenever I talk about trauma as being a superpower, I always run the risk of saying that initiation is necessary. That it's an initiation when the truth is that most people don't survive. These traumas, they die. So it's not, it can't be a call if it kills, most of the people go through it. But I do think we can outcome. I like the idea of alchemy, which is that when something happens to you that you can't digest, that you can't get rid of that you can't quote unquote fit. How do you begin to collaborate with it in a way that's really interesting, so that new shapes, new body forms, new possibles come into view. And so for me, it's about collaborating with these within digestibility and with things that you can't necessarily get. And I think because so many of us have drama, I want to offer that alchemy, which is, yeah. How can we collaborate in really generative, interesting ways. And I actually, one perspective I've had recently is Ecocide and extinction at the hands of Imperial capitalism. Created disabled ecologies. Most of our ecosystems are disabled in some way. They've been changed. They've been polluted, they're threaded through with plastics and we can't purify them, but we can look to non-normative body. And minds and beings for information on how to engage with disabled ecosystems. Like I think it's the, neurodivergent the people who've been through dark nights of the souls that we should ask for advice on how to live in a contaminated, complex ecosystem. Monica: Oh my gosh. Yes. Okay. And I'm like, keep going, say. Sophie: I mean, this is I actually, I wrote an essay about this, which is called the body as a doorway, which is, I was, I was having a problem. I was like, okay, I've done all of the PTSD, sematic treatments. I've done all the medical treatments. I've gone to all of the new age healers and I have an incurable genetic condition. That's killing me. And I haven't been able to solve my PTSD. And I was thinking about how would this. You know, modern wellness, I've been exiled that, you know, modern narrative appealing and progress doesn't map onto my bodily or my nervous system experience. And so I was thinking, okay, I'm a survivor, but I'm also falling apart. And I'm also a failure in terms of all of these different healing modalities. How do I recontextualize this? And I was like, okay, well, The body is the doorway. What if these wounds are the exact shape of another non-human entity? What if we can use these experiences of pain and suffering and illness as a compass, directing us out of human narratives into an empathic understanding of ecosystems and animals and species who are suffering right now. And I do think. Queer people, women, disabled people, dying people. Neurodivergent people really have a lot of understanding in those areas. They know what it's like to be exiled, to be harmed, to not, you know, a person who has. You know, hypermobility understand, understands what it's like to not feel like a unity, to feel like your rivers have been damned to feel like your joints have been taken out of place. And we can be, we can begin to massage these metaphors so that we expand our empathy out of the human. Monica: I love that so much. And it's so true, and this is where I can get just so passionate about those stories that I feel are not centered are kind of on the fringe. And, but they're, they're here, right. They're here and we have access to them and it's so I think the more we can kind of bring them into the circle, so to speak, the more we can. I think collectively benefit from those stories, because there's so much medicine in those stories, like you say, there's so much healing available, I think. And it's such a different way to think. And I think we are at this point where we are. You know, I love to talk about the upside down where we are actually kind of like turning everything or learning how to turn everything, not right side up, but you know what I mean? Like look at everything from totally different perspectives and those perspectives are bringing us so much understanding and so much more possibility as you had talked about before in terms of directions to head. And this is where it gets really exciting too, because it's where. You know, I was talking earlier to Sophie about, I feel like I'm in this bridge territory right now in my own little. And I like to think a lot about just, well, what's happening then. Like, there's this way we've been kind of linearly living in thinking our whole for centuries. And it's, that is changing. We're starting to experience. A whole new way of relating of being in relationship of rewilding, of threading, a new mythology of, so there's, there's, it's such an exciting time. It's such a, uh, vaccing time. It's such an interesting way to, to start to. Just turn everything that we think we know on its head and really come back into this place of wonder, because I feel like we're in this place of wonderment. What do you think? Sophie: Oh, I love that you use that word because my area of scholarship and study, and, you know, the focus of a lot of my work is rerouting Jesus in his actual ecological and historical context. And one of the earliest texts that comes down to us that might provide an example of what he was actually saying is the gospel of Thomas. And in it, he says, when you seek, you will be troubled. You'll be vexed. And when you were troubled, then you will wonder. And so the path to the kingdom, and when he said kingdom, the Aramaic term really actually is more like a verb. It's a relationship, it's it with something that's happened. It's right now it's between you and everyone. You know, it's not something to come. It's not, you know, a Cartesian abstraction somewhere else. It's this relationship right now. So we enter into the kingdom. Into the new way of telling stories by way of being troubled by complicating our ideas of what's conventional and what's normal. And then accessing that wonder, I think that we gate out miracles all the time because we are always, and this is actually a neurological phenomenon, which is because we receive so much stimuli. We want to actually be able to. Simplify that so that we can go about our days. So we begin to expect and predict information. So we're seeing things that we are expecting to see, not necessarily what we're seeing and if there's amazing moments, when we shift our perceptions, that the color blue really gets in, you know, that the smell of the flower is like actually what it is and not what we'd expect it to be. So for me, when I'm always helping, not trying to, trying to help people do is access that moment where. The world gets in when you stop getting out the world. And the wonder really blooms Monica: My gosh, I have the chills where the world gets in. It's just like such a, such a beautiful phrase. Sophie: Thanks. No, I mean, I really get that from Gnosticism Gnosticism through early Christian communities, which is just everyone has their, in a Gnosticism part of the reason why it was so. Problematic for orthodoxy later on was that every person's path to the spiritual experience was perfect. It wasn't this something, something you could plan or, um, prescribed. It was something that each person had to find. And I also think that's such an important thing right now is we're all going to access these things in our own personal way. Monica: Well, and that's what the revelation project is to me that it's like, you know, I often say, you know, don't do her project, do your project. We tend to keep going out there. And I'm like, it's, there's this way that. I don't know, it it's so maddening to me, but it's also, it makes so much sense in a way that. Looking for these answers collectively. And it's like, no, no, no. We each have our own individual path or each individual answers. Her answer is not, your answer is not my answer. It's like, there's actually this very, very intimate, personal path that you have to go on for yourself. It's not this homogenized way of perceiving that it's it's. Where the world gets in. It's these places where the world gets in and comes through Monica and comes through Sophie and comes through. Each individual person. And it that's again where the wonder and the joy and the magic is so accessible. And my next question, Sophie is why the fascination and the love of the story of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Sophie: Oh, I wish I could. I wish I could answer that. Speaking of wonder, I think that there are certain mysteries that you can never quite untangle and that's part of the beauty. I. I was raised by parents who studied spirituality. Um, my dad was an ex Buddhist monk working with rabbis and priests and theologians and, and writing about the history of religion. But the truth is that I was actually, it was talking about this with my parents, as I was raised in a household where. There was a lot of Buddhist culture. As my dad was still working with the so-called got guy Buddhist sect and still very heavily involved with Zen Buddhism. And there was also a lot of Judaism because half my family are Jewish. And so the dominant holidays and stories that I was raised with were Buddhist stories and Jewish stories. So it's actually perplexing to everyone. Monica: I love it. Sophie: That I've arrived. And it's interesting. Cause my parents now. Run an interfaith community. That's interested in the pagan roots of folk Catholicism. And so now they're working with these kind of under animist, undergirding of early Christianity in Europe, but that's not what they were doing when I was growing up. That's the interesting thing is my fascination with these stories came before that, which is it's strange. I think that I never, I always had a sense that the story of Jesus was attracted. That I always had. I had a sense that it was a Shakespearean tragedy that had been turned into a miracle story that was then co-opted by empire. And I was confused how that happened and it seemed also like a love story. And when I was 12, did a Vinci code came out and I said, ah, there we go. Like, there's some information there. I'd always, I love the Red Tent by Anita Diamant I don't know if you've ever read it. Monica: Uh, I have several times. I love it. Yeah. Sophie: One of my favorite books and definitely inspiration, which is how do you look at speaking of looking at things from different perspectives? From the upside down. How do you look at these stories that have come to us through patriarchs from the female perspective? And so I always thought, wouldn't it be interesting to look at the Jesus story from the perspective of the women and the women is not being, I sometimes get upset that. People pretend like Jesus couldn't have been who Jesus was inside of Judaism. Like he has to have studied in India. The Mary Magdalen has to have come from Ireland when the truth is all of the materials for his nature-based wild, mystical storytelling. And for the Magdalene's inheritance are right there in this wild, biblical folkloric, Judaism. And so I was like, what would it look like to go in there? Resurrect that ecosystem that inspired the teachings because the truth is, and this is what really feels important to me is you really look at you as teachings. They're radically anti Imperial, and they're all nature based and they're based in a specific. The ecology of Galilee. And so I said, well, maybe these teachings might make more sense if I plant them back in their flowers, their, their people, their daily routines, but it took a long, long time and a lot of study and research for me to even begin to feel like I had the chops to take this. Um, I think it would say like years of research. Monica: Oh my gosh. I love that. You said that because right. It is intimidating. And I love that you were like, you know, to, to have the chops, it just really does kind of bring up this, these layers right. Of complication that can feel daunting, especially, you know, when you look at. Just how much energy is invested in keeping this story. Just so exactly. Oh my goodness. It's it's so great. And so where do you think your courage comes from? Sophie: Oh, where do I think my, well, I think that the best way of putting it is that. I'm always trying to complicate the idea of an individual. We have more bacterial cells in our body than human cells are very cells are the product of a million year old bacterial merger. We're breathing in our ecosystem, the pheromones, the funk, the turpines, the spores all the time that go in and remake ourselves every seven years, we are. Co-creative with our environments. And so I think my courage comes from the Hudson valley and it also comes to my ancestors and my ancestors as being bacteria. The virus that taught humans, mammals many thousands of years ago, how to develop placentas, but also my fierce natural lineal line is women who are creative, but deeply oppressed and. I especially don't think of my mother's line of women who had such creative energy and were so. Erased and the line. And I call on them every day. And I think that I want to bring into fruition, the joy, the life that they imagined, but did not get to access. And we can, I sometimes think of whatever blessing I received as a party that everyone is going to be invited to and including all of my matrilineal line. That never got to experience that. I'm going to cry, probably just thinking about this, that I know this is something you think about too. Monica: I do. I do think about this. I'm so touched that you just brought that up because I had the opportunity to take my mother to dinner the other night. And like you, I have this really interesting. Very complex kind of background in terms of, you know, how you were describing the Buddhism and the Judaism. And so for me, it's like this just really interesting. And very dynamic story of how my parents came together. And there was 20 years between them and my father already actually had a wife and three children when they met his wife was very ill and there was a lot going on. My mother had left the convent. She was also a nurse. Oh yeah. They met in the, or he was a surgeon. She was his scrub nurse. She actually had a Subarachnoid hemorrhage. So she ended up in the same hospital. He noticed she was missing, like, it's this crazy story from the, or right. He was like, where's the nurse, you know, where's my scrub nurse. And it came to pass that right. At the same time he was drafted to Vietnam. Sophie: Oh my God. Monica: And she, because she couldn't go back to nursing, he had to go to the administrative office of the hospital and tell them that he wasn't able to leave his children and go to Vietnam and leave his wife to care for them because his wife was so sick. They sent my mother, so they sent my mother to care for his children. And they started a correspondence and then they eventually ended up together. The interesting thing was there was a tremendous amount of trauma, including the fact that my mother doesn't necessarily have access all the time to a linear progression of the memories because of the Subarachnoid hemorrhage. So I've only ever been able to piece parts of the story together. If I ask her the right question at the right time. And my dad died when I was 20. So it's like, oh wow. It's just interesting. Right? Because it's like this and he was 20 years older. So he was 70 when he died still very young, but so was my mom. My mom was only 50 when he died. So if you can imagine I was only 20. So trying to. I was just getting to the time where you, where you're curious about your parents as humans, you know, it just feels really relevant because part of what I was talking to her about the other night was. Just the matrilineal line on both sides actually. And I had just started recently getting very, very curious about who my father's mother was, because I never knew her or her Mo you know, like that whole line of individuals because his mom had passed well before I was born. And so it was just starting again to really perceive. How we always hear about the patriarchal lines, but we don't often know much about the matrilineal lines and bringing those back into focus and understanding who these women were and what were their stories. And part of this is that I had two sisters who never got. It's like my mother came into their lives and their mother ended up in the hospital and then died. And like they never saw their mother again. So there was just this tremendous amount of like awareness suddenly in that moment of like, oh my gosh, if we don't heal these things, they literally just they're patterns that repeat over and over and over again through the generations. And that's actually what we were talking about. Seeing kind of the byproducts or the other generations that have come through those women that are continuing to live lives of great trauma. And it's just really, I don't know, you know, it just, it really pulls up for me the importance now of starting to really honor and look to what that. Part of our human story has been, and it feels really like now is a time where we're really turning as women. Like we're having this moment of revelation around integration of, and healing of that ancestral line that we come from, but we don't have a deep. Sense or a, or a storytelling even. And that's that other piece that I think is so interesting was I was actually thinking last night that one of my sisters died of ALS who was from. You know, my half sister and she had tried to write her story before she died and never got to, but it was like, she was just starting to get the courage to start to write about her life. And then she passed and I was thinking about, you know, the book that I'm writing and it just is, is starting to occur to me that this is part of the story that I've been trying to surface. And I've been kind of. Been right here, but I hadn't really kind of tapped into it as like, cause it's been outside of my awareness because I've been so kind of focused through this patriarchal. I don't even know what to call it. It's like a teabag just being steeped in it, you know, like my whole life and like, realizing that the cup is actually the important part. Sophie: That's I love that. Yeah. I mean, I think that when we heal, when we do something, we have identified true heart's desire and we bring it into being that is not just the answer to our. That's the answer to all of those unfulfilled prayers and all of our ancestors lives. Yeah. And I think, I think like you writing your book is the answer to your sister's prayer, that she's, she's part of that she's experiencing fulfillment and you bringing your own book into being, and I think that that's such a beautiful way of realizing that everything. And we really ident when we're not living other people's dreams and expectations, and we're not following some patriarchal narrative or some narrative of how we're supposed to act. We really get in touch with, I sometimes think of it as our ecological needs. We get in touch with the taste, the nectar, you know, when like a bee, we identify the flower that we want to drink the nectar from. We will incidentally pollinate other things. When we find. Thing that we're very passionate about, very drawn towards. We're going to incidentally help other beings. We're going to answer other past ancestors prayers. You know, I think I heard. I'm trying to remember. I think perhaps it was Pat McCabe who said in an interview I heard, which is during the inquisition when queer people and healers and herbalists and women were getting exterminated across Europe, those people were. When they were in prison cells, they were praying and they didn't experience their prayers is being answered. But we in our freedom right now and in our ability to liberate other oppressed people right now can answer those ancient prayers that we are the answer to our ancestors' prayers. Yes. And for me, like looking back on all of these different interruptions and stories, And the inquisition, you know, the Holocaust, I've been really sitting with all of the stories of my friends, families, and my own family of Holocaust survivors in the past week. Cause it's been the remembrance. So I'm just thinking of all of these interrupted lives and how can we view our own. Ability to satisfy our hunger, to drink water, to view their families as a kind of honoring of all of those interruptions. Monica: You always bring things into focus for me, where I'm like, oh my gosh, I just need to like, just sit in that for a little while, you know, and just really kind of, I love it so much. And which leads me to my next to my next question. Well, there's two questions. One is what does revelation mean to you? Sophie: Why does revelation, well, it's the unveiling, it's the coming of, of the truth as some kind of universal cosmic experience. It's the shift. It's a paradigm shift when, how things really are suddenly apparent. I'm thinking of course, in terms of kind of. Early first century eschatology, the eschaton the coming of the new age. But for me personally, what does, what does revelation mean? I think revelation is, is ongoing. And I think, I think that's something that you, uh, from your own work that I've come up against would share is that it's more to be revealed. That it's a sense that what you believe is certain has always shifted. Just as weather cycles as the season cycle the moon cycles. So do other things come into view at different points? Sometimes the morning star is visible. Sometimes it's not, um, there are different constellations for different times of years. So I think that right now, especially. In this particularly hot political situation right now, we think that there has to be one fact, one truth in truth is unfolding. Constantly, always being revealed, always being adapted and that people who talk about science as being true, I want to be like, science is always updating science should evolve. It should change and it should check itself. It should be in conversation. So, yeah. For me, revelation is movement and it's the ability to move, to let the lymph move through your body. So it's cleaning you out, keeping you fresh, resilient, adaptable. Yeah. Monica: Check. I love that answer so much. And it is it's and I love all of the answers that. That I get about this question that I've recently been asking, because what I've realized it is to me, it's different, right. To everybody and it's, and, and it all belongs here. It's like, it, it all, it's all relevant. And I want to say the same thing about truth in the moment, or my other question was about contemplation because I do, I do see you as such a deep thinker, but here's what I also noted. You are also a deep feeler likes, like you, I almost sometimes see you feel into your answers, is that correct? Sophie: Ooh, I am. I love that. And that feels like, thank you for seeing me. Yeah. I would say that my, the way I think is like a spider using its whole web to think, you know, it's embodied cognition. Yeah. I think I like, I was thinking lately. I remember I said to my ex, when I, right before we broke up, I had just finished one book and was planning the next. And I said, you know, you're going to have to take care of yourself and keep yourself busy because I'm going to have to walk a hundred miles to write the next book I'm going to need to walk. Hundreds of miles to even feel into this. And I think that's true, which is every idea I have, I take on a walk and I walk into it. So yeah, I think contemplation for me is sematic. It is embodied. It's like dancing into something and feeling like, oh, is this is work. How does this feel? Yeah. Monica: Yeah. You take the idea on a walk. Gosh, I love that too. I'm imagining you getting the idea kind of from your head down, through your whole body, as you're walking right. As you're walking. So that is really amazing, but I've also been really intrigued by this idea of contemplation, because I've been looking at the work of Richard Rudd a lot. Do you know anything about the gene keys? Sophie: No, I don't. At all. Monica: He has this kind of really interesting distinction about contemplation and that it's different from meditation and it's different from con concentration. It's kind of like. Blend of, of concentration and meditation. And so it becomes contemplation and that it's this idea of not needing to know the answer, but just kind of being with it, this process of just being in an inquiry, being in relationship to. Complex ideas that just kind of start to inform you, you know, that just in the being with them, they actually start to integrate because we're not trying to just solve them up here. We're actually absorbing them and. Being becoming related to them from different points of our being. If that makes sense. Sophie: That's beautiful. Yeah. I've been thinking about this. I've been calling it in my own life, a generous uncertainty. Monica: Oh. Sophie: Which is like F F Scott Fitzgerald writes. You know, the sign of a true intellect is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in your mind and not go insane. Monica: That's so good. I love it. I've heard that before, but I always love hearing it again. It's so true. So good. Sophie: But there's so much information. Being produced at such a high rate every day that I honestly think that it's about how do you hold a million evolving facts, opposing facts in your head? Is that going crazy right now? And so for me, what I like to think about is that moment where, when an electron jumps between orbit, it's like, you can't tell where it is and it's emitting light. So you can tell only where it is as an emits light. And I like to think of. The healthiest place to be right now is between orbits jumping, between ideas, thinking about how they relate to each other without voting for one completely, because the problem is when the sands are shifting and you're, you know, you've put all of your. You voted for one sandcastle, you can very easily be swept away. It's much better to be able to kind of dance, but the uncertainty and to be playful with it. Yeah. So I love that contemplation because also it sounds like for me, just listening to you, it involves the body that it involves this mellowing, this kind of alchemizing metabolizing like a metabolizing of ideas. Monica: Yes. I think that's a really accurate word. It's a metabolized. And, you know, interestingly enough, now that I'm thinking about it, oftentimes. Without going too far into it. What he's having you contemplate are exactly that there's a shadow and a gift and what he calls the city, which is, you know, an ancient word, but it's, it's kind of like coming from the sh from what seems like these two opposing things are coming through them to. Really kind of unlock the gifts or the wisdom that's hiding inside of that paradoxical concept. One of the ways to be in relationship with these times is through contemplation where, which feels like a relief because there's often so much. Going on so much. Crazy-making let me just name that happening. That if, if we're up here all the time about it, you know what I mean? Like it's like, just get me a headbanging wall now to relieve the pressure of, of this need to have, like, what is actually happening is, is my constant unanswerable question, right? Like, what am I actually, what reality am I actually. In and what am I, which one am I viewing? Because I think there's sometimes different realities all happening in like these parallel timelines that we have access to seeing and joining if we want to. And I've decided I don't invest in a lot of cases, but that contemplation kind of becomes this almost like the witness. Who can kind of hold it without needing to solve it or figure it out. And without losing the joy that comes from all of that. I don't know, like all of that paradox in the space, because there's a way that I can just suck all of the joy from everything. And I think what I am always revealing. In my life are these interconnected pathways or portals that offer me as much joy and wonder and intimacy. It's not like I want total ease because that wouldn't also be fulfilling, but there's this way that I'm starting to identify that. It's like, no, not that. And no, not that, but that there's this kind of ebb and flow in this path that kind of continually allows me. I guess I'd call it grace, you know, where there's this feeling of going through the eye of the needle without necessarily having to keep through threading it? You know how you'd try to do that with an a, with a thread and a needle. And it's just this, like, it's these fleeting moments where you just realize. Oh, like, I can actually just, that's not mine, you know, that's not mine to hold. That's not mine to figure out. It's like, I can be a witness here, but I get to choose which part of me needs to know it or embody it or metabolize it or, and part of what I've, what I've found is that it's more about kind of just being able to hold it. And, and breathe, you know, and maybe we're at, that's the part that I'm starting to recognize, right? It's like you talk about the breath as same way I do as that connection back to our. To our spirit. It's like this illusion of kind of what we see in this material world and giving us access to make sense of it kind of in the blink of an eye, simply through the breath or the breathing. I don't even know if I make sense, but it's like this, this, the eye of the needle is actually that point where our humanity and our divinity kind of intersect for a moment. And it makes sense, like it's like a god wink. Sophie: Oh, a god wink I love that, Monica: Yeah. It's like, you know, like don't, don't take it too seriously. Like don't, you know, don't take it on, you know, it's not, it just feels so, uh, freeing in those moments. And for me, contemplation is very freeing. It's very like, it's more to be revealed. Yeah. Sophie: I mean, it reminds me of the word discernment, which is, you know, how. I think our culture encourages us to react immediately and to address things that happen without any kind of discernment, without really saying, you know, does this need me? You know, and I think because so many things happen, we feel like we have to personally respond to them. But we don't. And I like what you're saying. Cause what it says is I can witness this, but it doesn't need me, you know, says like, you know, the solution to the problem is part of the problem. Like our very way of creating solutions is problematic. It, we articulate the problematic hierarchy in the first place. So I think that what you're saying for me. Really resonates with this sideways stepping option, which is just okay, like how do I acknowledge that something is happening, but know that my best idea about how to act may actually not be necessary. I'm at a high take a breath. And, you know, I left also what you're saying ties back into every major spiritual tradition where the word for breath is always spirit, rock, and Hebrew, you know, w the breath is, is the spirit. It is the divine connection. Yeah. Monica: Yes. Which brings me back to your writing and just the spirit, you know, that you bring to your writing and. And I guess my final question for you, Sophie is where do you see the spirit of your writing leading you next? Sophie: Hmm. Well, Within general astrology, we're in an eclipse, so you're not supposed to manifest. You're not supposed to predict. And I have broken this rule many times and I have to be honest, he hasn't done me much. Good. This is a moment where I look. This time last year and see how many surprising things have happened. How many prayers have been answered in ways that are so much Wilder than I could have planned for myself? I think sometimes when we dream we're, we're dreaming with our impoverished self-worth who is Monica: Say more about that. Sophie: We are only dreaming what we think we're allowed to dream for ourselves. So if we had our dreams answered to a T, it would be disappointing. Rather, you always want to leave wiggle room for the divine to come in and be say, no, you're worth a lot more. You're worth something better than you could have authored. I don't want to be the author of bound miracle. You know, I would like to be a participant in it. So where do I see my writing leading me? I am not sure I have many, I have a book right now, which is a collection of essays, which is about. Healing beyond hope and ecological storytelling. And that book is finished and I'm in the beginning stages of thinking it needs to find a home. It needs to come out into the world. And I am hoping that in the next year I can get to England to research and begin the work on my next historical fiction book, which will be a queer ecological rewilding of the trust in his old goodness. But as we sit in this precipitous in between place, as you said, the bridge also open to the unexpected, let, let the wheel of fortune spin. Let me land, dance me into the place where I can experience the most joy and be of the most service. Monica: I noticed that you have been invited to a lot of storytelling events. Yes. Are there any coming up that you want to invite our listeners to, that you can think of or? Oh, Sophie: Well, can I say something with the option that we edited? Okay. I will be doing a course on, um, myth and mycelium with Advia this summer. So I'm very, and I'll be offering that it'll be five sessions and it will be a deep dive into replanting Yeshua and to Galilean ecology to rise a medic gods of the Mediterranean to looking at the shift from oral culture to textual culture. So that'll be really, really fun, and I'm very excited to offer that. And then there will be some more big events. On the topic of rewilding mythology, this autumn. So wink, keep your eyes on my Instagram. I'll be announcing there. Monica: Okay. Yay. I want to do that course. It's going to be the nerdiest thing ever. Sophie: It's just going to be me talking about Jesus and plants and parables and storytelling. Monica: Yeah. Bring me all the nerdy I am here for. I love it all because that, well, and that's the thing I love the most about you. Sophie is like, you're, there's just a way that you speak and like give other permit. You give me permission to think in ways that. You know, obviously enjoy. And it just, I noticed that my goal always when I'm talking to you is to make enough space for you to share more of the way you be in the world, because I really do feel that you are a. A teacher for me, and for many people in terms of how you, you know, see relationships and see opportunity and see storytelling through those very lenses. And so it just becomes for me like this fascinating, it's like the more I, the more I hear you speak, the more I notice that my thinking changes and. It's like you help me connect new neural pathways. So I'm always feeling so blessed to be in conversation with you to listen to you and to be in your presence. So thank you for being here today, Sophie: Monica, I feel the same way about you and I feel like you're doing that work with your podcast. You are weaving together all of these different stories so that a greater whole comes into being, I think of lichen, which is like algae and yeast and fun guy. Like you're bringing all of these different perspectives to create something like completely new. Monica: Thank you. Sophie: So thank you. Thank you for weaving me in and also thank you for teaching me. Yeah. Monica: Thank you. Thank you. And for our listeners. I'm like cannot say enough about just expose yourself to Sophie's work because she has Natalie's shift books. She has essays. There's many, many different ways to be exposed to her. She's been guesting on numerous different podcasts. So we'll, we'll try to put as. Links as we can in the show notes, just because she is a total treat and some of her writing will blow you away. I promise it will just like explode your heart and make you think about the world in an entirely different way. So until next time. More to be revealed. We hope you enjoyed this episode. For more information, please visit us@jointherevelation.com and be sure to download our free gift subscribed to our mailing list or leave us a review on iTunes. We thank you for your generous listening and as always more to be revealed.